


Begonias and Bestiaries

by ohwhatevers



Series: eightfitzweek2017 [2]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who: Eighth Doctor Adventures - Various Authors
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing It Better, M/M, Magic Kisses, eightfitzweek2017, look i dont know where the werewolf came from either
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-02 22:05:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11518431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohwhatevers/pseuds/ohwhatevers
Summary: "He was about to ask where the hell he got the begonia in the first place when a rack of glass jars behind them fell to the ground in an explosion of bright powders. Fitz spun around to see a blonde woman in a green dress run past, followed by a huge grey beast with brindled fur. ... “Oh damn,” was all Fitz could say before it collided with him and the begonia."A retelling of Fitz and the Doctor's meeting with witches and an apothecary, not a garden centre. Dr Roley is 'researching' possessions and preternatural diseases like lycanthropy in the Abbey when one of his patients escapes.





	Begonias and Bestiaries

**Author's Note:**

> unbeta-read, so any mistakes and bad writing are mine. i did hurry the ending and i feel the pacing is a bit off.

Fitz was not daydreaming, no matter what his supervisor thought. He had just been staring into the faint flicker of flame conjured around his fingers and thinking about the meaning of his existence – although perhaps he shouldn’t have done it near the racks of ground fireweed and snapdragon seed.

Mrs Simms was still glaring at him, so Fitz vanished the flames with a wave of his fingers. He straightened up and shuffled off to the counter. Working in Roley’s apothecary was nothing like the images he’d grown up with. There were no smoky rooms with low ceilings and a bubbling cauldron over smouldering coals but a large room, almost indistinguishable from a supermarket, with wide aisles and the closest it got to a cauldron was the gas stove in the staff breakroom. It did have a wicked witch - Mrs Simms fit the role so well she might as well have been typecast. Fitz sat down behind his till and tried not to think about how bored he was.

At least he was near the Abbey where his mother was staying, being poked and prodded by the mad wizard who owned this apothecary. If what his mother described to him down the telephone sounded dangerously close to black magic, Fitz was in no position to complain. Fitz didn’t really know what Dr Roley Jr wanted and neither did his mother, but his mother was content and Fitz had a little more ‘me time’ and freedom. Freedom to do nothing at all, it seemed.

A pretty witch walked past, arms full of herb bundles and leg bones. She was dressed in traditional robes but with the raised hemline and clinched waist that had become popular recently and the sway of her hips revealed confidence and power. Fitz smiled his best “I’m definitely a powerful witch and I don’t even need to be here at _all_ ” smile, trying to catch her eye. She walked past towards the fenland plants section.

But that was probably a good thing, she would have asked all sorts of specific questions about specific spells and Fitz’s suave demeanour would have crumbled. Fitz sighed and slumped on his stool. He looked about, Mrs Simms was nowhere to be seen. He flicked his fingers and conjured the warm flames again.

Fitz didn’t notice him at first. He was deep in an argument with a woman who thought that snapdragons and flapdragons were interchangeable and wouldn’t listen to a thing that Fitz was saying. Eventually he gave up, she could deal with the inevitable caustic mess that would result herself – the mistake would be blamed on his foreign surname and the hammed-up French accent he had put on anyway. When she finally paid and left, someone carefully put a begonia on the counter. Fitz looked up and finally noticed him. He was dressed oddly, with odd shoulder-length hair, odd eyes, and, well, he was _odd_. He had a look about him - like he wasn’t quite attached to his surroundings which, combined with his strange clothes, made him look like one of those who let their spells take too much from them. Fitz recognised the look and struggled not to look away.

“I’d like this begonia, please.”

“But you can’t use begonias for _anything_ , not even tonics,” Fitz said, “and it’s nearly dead.”

“Who says I need to use it for anything?” the man said, “And nearly dead’s better than dead any day.”

Fitz shrugged and rang it up. He was about to ask where the hell he got the begonia in the first place when a rack of glass jars behind them fell to the ground in an explosion of bright powders. Fitz spun around to see a blonde woman in a green dress run past, followed by a huge grey beast with brindled fur. The unnaturally proportioned shoulders and legs made it clear at first glance it was a werewolf. A werewolf which was now barrelling towards Fitz at top speed.

“Oh damn,” was all Fitz could say before it collided with him and the begonia.

The force of it knocked Fitz backwards and over the cash desk before he thought to conjure anything. The plant pot smashed against his chest and for a moment the pain of the terracotta shards digging into his chest seemed worse than the wolf’s rending claws. He dimly heard the crackle of unfamiliar electric spells and the sound of shouting but all he could do was try and not get mauled by 200 pounds of slavering wolf. He grabbed the snout and pushed away as hard as he could but the wolf’s teeth snapped dangerously close to his face. His arms quivered with the strain, he struggled, he gave up.

Before the werewolf could take a chunk out of Fitz’s neck, it froze and shook. It howled. Fitz winced; it was a horrific noise, anger and anguish and pain mixed up and scraping out Fitz’s ears. The werewolf slunk away, and Fitz staggered to his feet and grabbed the edge of the cash desk as his knees gave out. The strange man was standing before the wolf, holding out a talisman of rowan twigs bound with mistletoe. It feinted to the right and then the left. The man stepped closer and the werewolf tensed, ready to pounce forwards. Fitz opened his mouth to warn the man but he suddenly thrust the talisman higher, murmuring something, and the wolf flinched away like it had been struck. The red and white berries of the talisman glowed brighter and the wolf shrank back onto its haunches and growled.

The man slowly put the talisman in a pocket and walked forwards, one hand outstretched to touch the werewolf. Fitz was frozen, unable to tear his eyes away from what would likely end in a messy dismembering, and the small crowd that had gathered were dead silent now. The werewolf growled and quivered with the tension in its bunched-up muscles but it didn’t move. It didn’t know what to do either, no one had ever approached it like this man. It stood up and lifted up its head. It started whimpering and Fitz was suddenly struck with the image of an abandoned puppy.

“Good boy, good boy, aren’t we a good boy,” the man was saying, keeping up a low stream of comforting nonsense, the werewolf’s ears pricked up, following the flow of the man’s voice. The woman in the green dress stood at the man’s shoulder, watching them closely. She held arcs of painfully blue lightning in her hands, ready to strike. The man was just about to touch the werewolf’s head, and Fitz wanted, _needed_ , to know what he and the woman would do next, when

_BANG_

A single shot rang out and the werewolf’s body flung itself backwards with the shock of the bullet. Fitz watched in horror as, almost in slow-motion, the back of its skull exploded, sending a spray of bone, brains and blood into the air. The creature screamed and started to spasm, the smell of burning flesh rose, its fur stood on end. Then it dropped and was still.

Fitz had never seen anyone so angry as that man was then. He turned around slowly and stood very still. A man and a plump woman had pushed through the small gathering while everyone’s attention was on the creature. One of them Fitz recognised as Dr Roley, a weedy milksop of a witch, and the other was a thickset bulldog woman, who had been the one to shoot the werewolf if the unwieldy blunderbuss in her hands was anything to go by.

“Silver, was it?,” the man spoke evenly and politely but even the blonde woman, who clearly knew him, looked at him in alarm. Fitz felt cold and tried to pull himself up, trying to ignore the tingle that went through him at the command in the other man’s voice.

“Of course,” Dr Roley said.

“I could have stopped him if you hadn’t jumped in like an idiot,” the man shot back. The blonde woman and Fitz shared a look over the other’s heads. She began guiding people away and gestured to Fitz to help her. The adrenaline had worn off now and Fitz felt every bone in his body ache as he limped over. Something warm and wet was trickling down his leg and Fitz prayed he hadn’t soiled himself when the werewolf attacked. At least the customers were listening to him for once as they chivvied them away.

“It was a risk, you saw that, it almost killed that man there!” Roley whined, gesturing at Fitz who tried desperately to look a little less shell-shocked. The odd man’s eyes swept over him before turning back to Roley. Fitz slumped a little in relief and not a little disappointment.

“ _He_ was _at_ risk, and you killed him!” he shouted, pointing furiously at the body on the ground. And it was a body now, a stocky middle-aged man, naked as the day he was born. But it would take a necromancer to tell what his face had looked like, the damage from the exit wound was that extensive. The gun’s propulsion and the reaction of the silver bullet had cracked open the skull like an egg and destroyed the man’s face. Fitz covered him with his shredded apron and tried not to be sick.

“As a patient of mine, he knew what could happen when he signed up to my treatment.”

“A patient?” the man was incredulous, “and was he a lycanthrope before or after your treatment?”

“We are examining the effect of different lights and potions on various preternatural diseases…”

“And that includes triggering a transformation in daytime, long before a full moon, and letting him run wild?”

Roley’s face had turned a shade of grey, like cream of mushroom soup, and he constantly clenched his hands and squirmed under the man’s gaze. The bulldog woman placed a hand on Roley’s arm,

“You don’t need to explain your methods. These people have no authority here, not like you.”  

“You’re right,” the strange man said after a pause, “come along, Sam, we’ll the professionals deal with this one.”

“But…Doctor!”

“No you heard the lady, we have no authority here,” said the Doctor and strode away from the spluttering Roley. After one more look at the dead body and a deadly stare at Roley, Sam followed him.

“You too, Fitz!” the stranger called back over his shoulder and Fitz scrambled after them, leaving behind shattered shelves and cash desk, and very probably the remains of his one certain source of income. At least he wouldn’t have to explain this one to Mrs Simms.

“How’d you know my name?” Fitz asked once he caught up with the pair.

“It’s on your nametag, silly,” Sam told him. Fitz tried not to be disappointed; he had hoped the Doctor would turn out to have something like psychic powers. Something like that would have explained away the Doctor’s strangeness.

They hurried across the car park and into the Abbey grounds, heading towards a small copse. Sam and the Doctor were aiming for something like a shed in the trees, but Fitz’s vision had begun to blur and he couldn’t see exactly what it was. He screwed up his eyes and squinted. He fell back from the others; there was a thick haze over his eyes. Fitz dragged his feet and stumbled over the uneven ground. The others’ voices floated back towards him like a conversation overheard in the next room. He swayed as the blood rushed down from his head, his stomach swooping after it. Every step he took sent waves of pain all through his body - something was clearly wrong with his leg - his muscles were freezing up and getting stiffer and stiffer.

Sam and the Doctor had reached the shed now. The door was open and full of soft blue light. Or maybe that was Fitz’s eyes going funny again. Fitz staggered the last few feet and clutched at the Doctor’s arm as a rush of nausea swept through him. Blood was roaring in his ears, a deep pounding drumline drowning out what the Doctor was saying to him. Fitz opened and shut his mouth, trying to force an apology out, trying to explain. He blinked once, twice, and then he fainted.

When Fitz awoke, he appeared to be in a hospital bed. He was in a large room with a high ceiling and bright white light coming from somewhere he couldn’t see. Something mechanic was beeping quietly, regular as a heartbeat. Slowly, the whys and wherefores of how he wasn’t at work being bored out of his mind came back to him: the werewolf, the strange Doctor and his attractive friend, how he had collapsed. He sat up and swung his legs to the floor - or at least, he tried to. The bottom half of his body was completely immobile.

Fitz flung his head back on the pillow and tried hard not to hyperventilate. If he concentrated hard, he could wriggle the toes of his left leg, but his right was as still as stone. Fitz hadn’t noticed it when he woke but there was a pressure cuff on his right arm and a long glowing blue tube extending from it into a squat machine that was making the beeping noises. The cuff was tightening steadily and the beeping got louder and faster as Fitz fought with his rising panic. His skin was heating up, steam rising off it, and his fingers began to tingle. The cuff cut off the blood in his arm and it lay numb and limp at his side. Fitz scrabbled about with his other arm, flailing about and trying to pull his upper body up. If Fitz couldn’t get his breathing back to normal soon, his fight-or-flight could trigger a dangerous magical reaction.

A door opened behind him and someone dashed in. There was the sound of porcelain clattering on metal and they ripped the tube out of the machine. It squawked angrily then was silent. Fitz sucked in a huge gasp of air and tugged at his hair as he breathed in and out. Now he wasn’t fighting his own panic, he was angry. Not only had he been mauled, but he had been attacked by a machine and almost set himself on fire. They helped Fitz to sit up and Fitz twisted around, ready to rail on whoever had done this, and came face to face with a china cup on a saucer. He looked up. It was held out by that man, the Doctor or whatever his name was, and he looked faintly embarrassed by something. Fitz took the cup, and the Doctor perched himself on the edge of the bed.

Fitz peered into the cup and was relieved to see it looked very much like tea. He gulped it down, it was tea, and felt the warmth settle in his aching bones.

“How are you feeling?” the Doctor asked.

“Peachy, but I don’t think your machine likes me,” Fitz replied. His voice was husky from gasping and he clutched the cup handle to prevent his fingers shaking – it also stopped him from flinging the tea in this man’s face.

“Ah, about that…,” said the Doctor, reaching over to peel the pressure cuff off Fitz’s arm, “there must be something in your blood stopping her from reading your levels properly. And I need to, I need to…” he faded off and looked away.

“Doctor… _just_ Doctor?”, he nodded and Fitz pressed on, pushing himself to look the Doctor in the eye, “Why can’t I move?”

“Look at your leg.”

Fitz put his tea on top of the machine, pushed back the covers and blanched. His trousers had been taken off and his upper leg was a mass of bandages and gauze but they were dyed a deep brownish red by blood seeping through. He lifted up his ruined t-shirt to reveal an impressive number of bruises and smaller gashes covered in gauze. He had numerous on his shoulders and uppers arms where the werewolf had first sunk its claws into him. They were all bloody and weeping steadily. Fitz poked at one on his ribs in sick fascination.

“I don’t understand, I thought it never bit me.”

“The TARDIS thinks it wasn’t a normal werewolf. There’s something not right about that doctor’s treatments – Sam’s gone to see if she can find anything out.”

Fitz had no idea what a TARDIS was but he said nothing in favour of conjuring little flames and pressing them against his wounds. He felt nothing over a constant background ache.

“Stop that.” The Doctor grabbed his hands and held them tight. Fitz glared at him but froze, transfixed. The Doctor looking at him with such intensity that Fitz felt tiny, pinned under a microscope, but also strangely comforted by that gaze, like the universe had shrunk to just him and the Doctor. His anger and frustration melted swiftly away.

“I can do something about them, if you’ll let me,” the Doctor said, “but I need to touch you.”

Fitz didn’t say anything about how the Doctor was already touching him and nodded. His mouth had gone dry and he couldn’t look away from the Doctor’s face. The Doctor leaned forward, drawing their clasped hands close to his chest, and pulled up Fitz’s t-shirt again. He peeled off the gauze one by one, and every time Fitz winced he hushed him gently and rubbed soft circles with his thumb over Fitz’s knuckles.

This was far too intense for Fitz, he could feel himself tensing up, but he couldn’t break the spell of the drawn-out moment. The Doctor let go his hands and drew back. Fitz looked at him in confusion - he was moving forward. The Doctor kissed a cut on his shoulder.

Fitz gasped. Where the Doctor’s lips touched was icy cold and then a wave of warmth blossomed outwards, filling Fitz up from the roots of his hair to the tips of his toes. The Doctor smiled and Fitz felt it brush against his skin. He pulled back again and Fitz turned his head to see the cut had completely healed, leaving only a faint white scar. Fitz looked at the Doctor in wonder, who beamed at him then tugged Fitz’s t-shirt over his head. He dropped it on the floor beside the bed and slowly pushed Fitz back onto his back. The soft sound of fabric against fabric was almost painfully loud. Everything was amplified - Fitz tried not to curl into himself. The Doctor got up and knelt on the bed, straddling Fitz’s hips. He shifted closer and kissed another claw mark near the crook of his neck.

The Doctor kissed him again and again. Then again.

He kissed his way slowly down, agonisingly gentle; Fitz sucked in a breath and held still. His toes curled as the tide of hot and cold flowed through him. The Doctor had reached his ribs and he was about to kiss a deeper gash ringed with small burns from Fitz’s fingers, when he hesitated. He traced the ring of burns with his finger tips and then with kisses. Fitz shivered all over and clenched the thin sheet. He whimpered and drifted along in the Doctor’s magic as it probed and prodded his insides, seeking out the hurt.

The Doctor stopped and shook Fitz's shoulder. His eyes burned with blue fire, the colour of his magic blurring out the whites and spilling out, pouring down his cheeks like tears. And when Fitz opened his eyes, the same light shone out of them. The brightness created flares and halos around objects in the room and he spent a moment idly watching how the light moved.

“Can you move your leg for me?” the Doctor asked, bringing him back to the present.

Fitz concentrated, and - “Yes!” - he bent his leg at the knee. The Doctor began to unwrap the bandages, twisting it around his hand as he went. His long curls were damp with sweat and in disarray, the strain of healing showing in how pale he was. Soon only a thick layer of iodine dressing remained. The Doctor ripped it off, and Fitz hissed and thumped the mattress in pain. The wound underneath was ugly, red and raw, four angry gashes, one of which was a deep gouge through the muscle to the bone. The seeping blood was an unnatural purple colour and, although it wasn’t clotting together, the edges of the wound had stiffened like old scar tissue.

The Doctor breathed in and out and carefully placed his hand on it, drawing the edges together with the span of his fingers. With his other hand, he tilted Fitz’s head up, brushing his thumb over his chin, and kissed him on the lips.

The power that healed his other wounds was nothing compared to this tidal wave of magic that crashed through him, winding him with its force. He could feel the flesh of his thigh stretching and breaking as months of cellular lifespans happened in a matter of moments. It was like kissing lightning, or a forest fire, or a wild stormy sea; all Fitz could do was hold on and ride it out. Fitz’s heart raced to an unfamiliar beat, straining in his chest, and he felt his magic bubbling up to greet the Doctor’s.

Eventually, the Doctor pulled back and rested their foreheads together. Fitz reached up and cautiously stroked his curls back and tucked the soft hair behind his ear, unsure if he was owed to touch, but the Doctor beamed and leaned into the touch. Fitz ran his fingers through the Doctor’s hair like petting a cat. The Doctor lifted his hand off Fitz’s leg and examined where the wound had been. All that remained were three long white pink scars and one slightly redder thick scar. Fitz prodded it. It was tender but healed, and his thigh was covered in a sticky purplish black liquid.

“That’s the best I can do, I’m afraid,” the Doctor said.

Fitz jumped as the silence was broken. “Thanks,” impulsively, he kissed the Doctor’s cheek. “What’s this black stuff, then?” trying to deflect the Doctor’s attention from what he had just done. The Doctor gave Fitz a look, making it clear that he knew what Fitz was trying to do, but when he looked at the strange stuff, his expression changed. He scooped some up with his finger, sat back, and held it up to the light.

“This must be what was causing the transmission of the disease!” the Doctor cried and leapt to his feet. He grabbed Fitz’s hand, dragging him off the bed.

“Bring it with you, let’s get a better look at this,” he said, pulling Fitz along with him as he hurried to the door. He pushed a large square button and it slid open to reveal a long corridor. He turned right and set off briskly.

And Fitz, confused and trouserless as he was, limping a little on his newly healed leg and clammy with sweat and the unnatural liquid, was happy to follow him. The Doctor turned to look at Fitz and grinned at him. Just then, he could have happily followed the Doctor into a cave full of even more werewolves. Fitz grinned back.


End file.
